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Intel Unveils Xeon E5 'Grantley' for Broad Range of Server Workloads

From enterprise applications and HPC to networking and storage, Intel expects the Xeon E5-2600 v3 chips to expand its data center presence.

Intel is introducing its next-generation Xeon E5 processors for mainstream servers, unveiling a platform that will continue the chip maker's efforts to expand the reach of its architecture in the data center beyond traditional servers and enable it to address the challenges raised by such trends as big data, cloud computing and software-defined environments.

Intel officials are unveiling the new Xeon E5-2600 v3 "Grantley" chips at a press event in San Francisco Sept. 8, the day before the company's annual Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in the same city. A range of server vendors—including Dell, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems—will be incorporating the new chips into their next-generation systems.

The new 22-nanometer processors are based on the "Haswell" architecture, enabling Intel to bring its latest architecture to the product line that accounts for more than three-quarters of the server chips the vendor sells. They will come with as many as 18 cores and will sport DDR4 memory, which will not only improve performance but also help drive down power consumption, an increasingly important metric as organizations look to manage more workloads and process more data while keeping costs down. They also will come with other new features that touch on power management and instruction sets, and will offer as much as 36 percent improvement in power efficiency.

Further reading

Intel is the dominant chip maker in the server space, holding more than 90 percent of the market. However, big data, mobility and the cloud are changing the demands in the data center, and in recent years, the chip maker has been building out its capabilities in such areas as networking, storage and software as it looks to extend the reach of the Intel Architecture.

During a recent workshop at the company's Hillsboro, Oregon, campus, Intel officials talked about the need to address the increasingly broad range of IT workloads in modern data centers, from enterprise applications and HPC to graphics rendering, big data, networking, edge routing, cold storage and dedicated hosting. Intel, with its expanding portfolio of products and capabilities, wants to make sure that it has the silicon and solutions to address all those areas. The new Xeon E5-2600 v3 illustrates that effort, they said.

"We're going to put the whole portfolio of assets to work," Dylan Larson, director of product lines for Intel's Data Center Group, told a group of journalists and analysts at the workshop.

That will mean ensuring that the processors will be complemented with other Intel technologies for such areas as networking, storage, hyperscale environments and HPC. In addition, the chip maker will offer almost two dozen processors within the Grantley family, with the numbers of cores ranging from four to 18 and a range of frequencies (topping out at 3.5GHz), power consumption (the thermal design power ranges from 55 watts to 145 watts for servers, and 160 watts for workstations), cache and memory. Some with be optimized for speed, while others for memory.

In addition, the officials noted that the chip maker will continue making special processors for particular customers, such as it has done for eBay.

"We've been pretty clear over the last 12 to 18 months that we are doing customization solutions for some customers," Eoin McConnell, product line director for the Xeon E5 family of chips at Intel, said during the workshop. "We will entertain requests from customers" and then decide if pursuing the customization work makes sense for Intel."

Charles King, principal analyst for Pund-IT Research, said that despite the dominant position it holds within the server chip market, Intel continues to push forward to improve its platforms, as evidence by its drive to shrink the package to 14nm and smaller.

"They're a remarkably innovative company from the point of view of chip designing, and they've managed … to continue to deliver the goods," King told eWEEK. "The sense if get from Intel is that they're never satisfied with what they've achieved. They're always looking at the next thing."